Grimm Legacies

Author(s):  
Jack Zipes

This book explores the legacy of the Brothers Grimm in Europe and North America, from the nineteenth century to the present. The book reveals how the Grimms came to play a pivotal and unusual role in the evolution of Western folklore and in the history of the most significant cultural genre in the world—the fairy tale. Folklorists Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm sought to discover and preserve a rich abundance of stories emanating from an oral tradition, and encouraged friends, colleagues, and strangers to gather and share these tales. As a result, hundreds of thousands of wonderful folk and fairy tales poured into books throughout Europe and have kept coming. The book looks at the transformation of the Grimms' tales into children's literature, the Americanization of the tales, the “Grimm” aspects of contemporary tales, and the tales' utopian impulses. It shows that the Grimms were not the first scholars to turn their attention to folk tales, but were vital in expanding readership and setting the high standards for folk-tale collecting that continue through the current era. The book concludes with a look at contemporary adaptations of the tales and raises questions about authenticity, target audience, and consumerism. The book examines the lasting universal influence of two brothers and their collected tales on today's storytelling world.

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 90-100
Author(s):  
Akmal Akhmatovich Jumayev ◽  

Background. The article focuses on specific similarities of the peoples of the world in their views on the crow. Also in myths, in German and Uzbek fairy tales, the portrayal of the crow in positive and negative images was analysed comparatively. All folk tales lead to good. The same lesson is also reflected in the article on the educational significance of the two folk tales. Methods. Particular attention is paid to the fact that the peoples of the world have certain similarities in their views on the crow. The image of the Crow also moved to fairy tales based on Legends. Results. In the fairy tale, it is not explained why the hero became a crow. It is known that in fairy tales the evolution of children to different birds (often owl or crow) is described either because of some side work of their father, or because of his own senselessness. Discussions. In German fairy tales Interesting is that in “Die sieben Raben“ “The seven ravens”, “Die Rabe“ ‘The raven” fairy tales, a crow is not just an ordinary bird, but a symbol of children. In Uzbek fairy tales, the image of birds is focused on fostering such positive personal qualities as industriousness, honesty and friendliness.


2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-44
Author(s):  
Emma Louise Parfitt ◽  
Emine Erdoğan ◽  
Heidi Fritz ◽  
Peter M. Ward ◽  
Emma Parfitt ◽  
...  

The conversation piece is the product of a group interview with Professor Jack Zipes and provides useful insights about publishing for early career researchers across disciplines. Based on his wider experiences as academic and writer, Professor Zipes answered questions from PhD researchers about: writing books, monographs and edited collections; turning a PhD thesis into a monograph; choosing and approaching publishers; and the advantages of editing books and translations. It presents some general advice for writing and publishing aimed at postgraduate students. Professor Zipes is an Emeritus Professor at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities, United States, a world expert on fairy tales and storytelling highlighting the social and historical dimensions of them. Zipes has forty years of experience publishing academic and mass-market books, editing anthologies, and translating work from French, German and Italian. His best known books are Breaking the Magic Spell (1979), Fairy Tales and the Art of Subversion (1983), The Irresistible Fairy Tale: The Cultural and Social History of a Genre (2012), and The Original Folk and Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm (2014).


2011 ◽  
Vol 63 (3) ◽  
pp. 234-249
Author(s):  
Gerd Bockwoldt

AbstractThis article analyzes whether anti-Judaism, which was widespread during the German Romantic period and which was evident in organizations such as the "Christlich deutsche Tischgesellschaft" (a German Christian Society), and here especially in Achim von Arnim, also included the Brothers Grimm. One could conclude so when considering mainly the publishing history of their collection of fairy tales, which since its third edition (1837) has been appended. The same was already true for the previously published selection of tales for children (1825). However, a closer look reveals the stylistic nature of these appendixes, which provided a linguistic characterization for the tales' character types (Jew, farmer, soldier, etc.). The actual problem that the Brothers Grimm – especially Wilhelm Grimm – did not recognize and/or ignored is evident in the breaches of law as depicted in the fairy tales "Der gute Handel" and "Der Jude im Dorn." Thus, while one cannot accuse the Brothers Grimm of clear-cut anti-Judaism, one can fault them for their careless handling of problematic texts, which still causes irritation today.


2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (1-2 (18)) ◽  
pp. 116-125
Author(s):  
Vicky Tchaparian

Although Brothers Grimm collection of fairy tales have somehow the same cliché of plot, setting, and characters, in the fairy tale of Shrek the protagonist doesn’t follow this cliché. Shrek the protagonist is not a classical fairy tale of the handsome prince in quest of a beautiful princess; instead, he is an ogre. Grimm brothers wrote on text that they collected from the words of mouth giving the traditional tales a special structure and characters. However, compared to Grimm Brothers’ tales, Shrek the film, has a completely different structure and characters. In this paper I try to disclose the fact that Grimm folk tales which reveal the mentality of the 19th century as well as that of the earlier ages that belong to specific cultures (especially to the European culture and their mentality) are completely different than that of Shrek the film.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 (2) ◽  
pp. 126-132
Author(s):  
Aida R. Gasharova

The article deals with Lezgi folk riddles. They can be a constituent element of many genres of folklore, although they exist in folk art as an independent genre. The analysis is focused on folk riddles in the “fairy tale” speech, as well as the use of various kinds of “mysterious” elements in the creation of folk tales. The riddle participates in the complication of many fairy tales. The role of the riddle in a fairy tale is controversial. Basically, the function of riddles in a folk tale is entertaining, but their role in fairy tales is also very significant for the formation of the plot. Riddles are firmly entrenched in a number of fairy tales to complicate them. Both folk tales and folk riddles are metaphorical. We study the traditional plots of Lezgi folk tales, in which we find riddles. The purpose of our study is to identify the multi-aspect interdependence of the Lezgin folk riddle as a plot-forming element in various types of fairy tales. Creative imagination often introduces a riddle into the plot of social and everyday tales “about wise answers” (“about guessing”), which most often contain the origins of difficult riddle problems. The relevance of the chosen topic is due to the lack of study of this issue in the Lezgi oral and poetic creativity.


2013 ◽  
Vol 24 (29) ◽  
pp. 194-202
Author(s):  
Eleonora Lassan

This article focuses on one of the most popular plots in fairy tale culture (the plot involving the protagonist Tom Thumb), and tries to explain this popularity through the cultural archetypes that are expressed in the fairy tale. The author analyzes fairy tales of different nations involving this particular character and draws a boundary between the literary fairy tale, which is a transformation of old French fairy tales written by Charles Perrault, and different variations of literary fairy tale written by the brothers Grimm. The research shows that it is impossible to apply Propp’s method, which allows the plot to be analyzed in regard to functions and character types, to the analysis of this fairy tale. The author assumes that the fairy tale about Tom Thumb may not be regarded as magic for various reasons. On the other hand, it may be treated as an animal tale, which in Propp’s approach is assumed to have a different structure from a magic fairy tale. The researcher draws a conclusion about the different archetypes that serve as the basis for Perrault’s literary fairy tales, and the numerous variations of the plot which we may relatively denominate as “Grimms’ plot.” Furthermore, in folk tales having Grimms’ plot, Tom Thumb simultaneously performs the role of cultural hero and the role of a trickster. This is absent from Perrault’s fairy tale, because the propaganda of moral values and a distinct didactic character are traditional features of French fairy tales.


2021 ◽  
Vol 77 (3) ◽  
pp. 44-51
Author(s):  
Ts. Tsui ◽  

Russian folk tale surprises with its rich vocabulary, colorful turns, and unusual stylistic methods. In order to plunge into the world of the Russian folk tale, in this article, we will analyze each feature separately and highlight more indicative features in each. The tale has a generalizing idea that has been developed over the centuries. In a fairy tale, artistic thought itself plays a huge role, and this unity is created thanks to certain means: repetitions, epithets, hyperbole, antithesis and other stylistic and compositional techniques. From the point of view of their stylistic specifics, Russian folk tales are taken a particular interest. Ergis G.U. argued that not only their content but also the stylistic features of the text serve as a means of moral education of the reader. The grammatical properties of units consist of: forms of words, phrases, sentences, order of units, grammatical meanings of forms, etc.


Literator ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Isabel Dos Santos

The legacy of the Brothers Grimm continues to fascinate readers and researchers alike. The 200-year anniversary of the first publication of their fairy tales sparked a renewed interest in the life, work and times of the brothers. Fascinated by the past, by the political present and by the literary future of Romanticism, the Brothers Grimm stayed together in an unusual working union. They established what was to become German philology and published many invaluable works on language and history, myths and folk tales. This article will focus on the brothers’ place in German Romanticism through their contribution of fairy tales. The period was marked by political and philosophical thought that emphasised authentic experienced and the spiritual unity of art, science and philosophy. There was a strong call for national emancipation. Literature was required to embody this unity through an established national literature founded on German folk traditions. The Grimms seemed to have heeded that call. But a careful study reveals that their intentions were motivated less by the literary movement than by their own strong convictions which they upheld even at the cost of compromising the authenticity they claimed to uphold in their poetics. The many controversies regarding the origins, collection and editing of the fairy tales is inextricably linked to the brothers’ difficult relationship with the Romantic Movement. Two hundred years later, this article seeks to give an appraisal of the Brothers’ motivation for their poetics and of the research conducted thus far.


Litera ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 111-120
Author(s):  
Lola Bobodzhanova

This article is dedicated to the analysis of fairy tales as a special genre of children's fiction literature with unique features and a long history. In the course of this work, the author gives definitions to the key concepts; examines correlation between the literary fairly tale and folk fairy tale, evolution of fairy tale genre, namely the works of Brothers Grimm. The article the stages of establishment of fairy tales as an independent genre in the history of literature. An attempt is made to determine the genre similarities that make fairy tales comprehensible within the framework of other linguocultures. Special attention is turned to the specificities of national cultural adaptation in translation of fairy tales from German into Russia, taking into account the peculiarities of translation transformations. The conducted analysis allows concluding that children’s fairy tale literature is a reflection of the national linguistic worldview, and largely depends on the existing in the society national cultural traits, mentality and perception of the world. These facts indicate that translation and adaptation of fairy tale literature requires the translator to understand the uniqueness of worldview of the people affiliating to different cultures, as well as convey the national cultural identity and specificities of foreign perception and mentality of the representatives of various linguocultures.


Author(s):  
Jack Zipes

This chapter attempts to clarify the importance of the connections between witches and fairies coupled with their deep roots in pagan and Greco-Roman beliefs by moving away from western Europe to look at the great witch Baba Yaga of Slavic countries. It cites three reasons for concentrating on Baba Yaga and Slavic fairy tales. The first one regards neglect. For the most part, the focus of folklore and fairy-tale studies in the United States and western Europe has been on the works of the Brothers Grimm and other notable western European writers and folklorist. The second is to understand the relationship between goddesses, witches, and fairies. The third reason is that a brief analysis of Baba Yaga tales with a focus on the neglected work Russian Folk Tales (1873), translated and edited by W.R.S. Ralston (1828–89), might assist us in grasping how oral and literary traditions work together to reinforce the memetic replication of fairy tales.


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